The End of the North Temple Visitors Center

This last week was a little sad as we have watched the demolishing of the North Temple Visitors Center. The Christus has been put in storage and the walls have come tumbling down. It has been bitter sweet to watch some of the "construction" that has been going on. We know it will eventually be even more beautiful that it was before; but, it is sad to see so much being torn down. 

Work continues to progress on the Temple. It doesn't look much different from the outside, although we see lots of heavy equipment running all the time. Steve looks out the window everyday with his binoculars. He has a diagram over his desk with a rendering of the finished International Plaza and he compares what he sees to the picture. 

The weather has turned cold but so far no snow. It is mostly clear so it has been absolutely beautiful. With some of the hours we have been working we have been able to see some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I have ever seen. Several times we have seen both in the same day. Below is a picture we took that past week just at dusk. The picture doesn't do it justice. The rays of coming down from the sun were incredible and looked very celestial. It was breath taking.

This past week was the last busy week for a little while at least. We had events Tuesday during the day and then again in the evening. During the day we had our French team participate in the French Polynesia Trainings and Devotionals.  This is a three day event with two sessions each day. On Tuesday we had the Young Adult Devotional and the Youth Devotional. Unfortunately, we didn't get the English piped into our room so we didn't understand much except for an occasional English speaker. 

The event that night was fun and not so fun. It was the Christmas on Temple Square - Opening Concert. I was really looking forward to it for several reasons. First of all it is a concert and those are always fun and second we got to have children come in as they were doing some interpreting! Now for the not so fun part. First of all they put the children on the 28th floor so we didn't get to see much of them at all and they didn't pipe anything in to us so we didn't even get to hear them. We did get a picture of one of the daughters of our Interpreters.

On Wednesday we had the second day of French Polynesia Trainings and Devotional. This time we did the Priesthood Leadership and the General Leadership meetings in the afternoon. In the evening we did the third session of the Asia Area Tour. This was the Missionary Meeting with Elder Uchtdorf. It has been fun to watch Elder Uchtdorf. It is clear that he is not using a script as his talk seems to be purely off the cuff. He shares personal stories that relate to what previous speakers talked about as well as to demonstrate a point he would like to make. He has shared stories bout his kids, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren. For example in one week they attended the blessing of their youngest great grandchild and then the baptism of their oldest great grandchild. He was talking about how important family is and how we need to support them.

Steve's New Ties for his Birthday 

Thursday was Steve's birthday. We had a lighter day than usual. We finished up the third day of the French Polynesia Trainings and Devotional with a Tahiti Member Devotional followed by the final session that was a Tahiti Mission Meeting. Again, most of it was in French so we didn't get a whole lot out of either meeting. We didn't have any evening events so we actually got to leave at 5:30, when the event was over. So to celebrate we went out to Dairy Queen for blizzards. We had a big lunch and weren't very hungry so blizzards served as a delicious dinner and desert. lol

Friday was a very light day. There were two events for the day but both were Language Coaching and didn't require our attendance at all. The Linfords are doing very well and we are just about ready to cut them loose.  We had a meeting with the four of us to go over all the different things Steve and I have been doing to see how we could divide up the tasks. We actually ended up combining a couple of tasks that were almost duplicates between both of our lists. We both were tracking much of the same information about events in two different spreadsheets. We decided it would be more efficient for one person to update both spreadsheets at the same time since some of the information is the same. That way they can copy once and paste twice. We have three big monitors so it is easy to have everything they need open on each screen to make it very easy to update.

Christmas Tree in the JSMB

Saturday was our final event for the Asia Area Tour. This one started at 3:00 AM again. The event didn't start until 5 but we have to be there early to setup and the interpreters come 1 1/2 hours before to do mic checks. Sometimes there are issues and they want to make sure those are all worked out BEFORE the event starts. Because of the early hour, we decided to do breakfast after the event like we did last week. It worked out very well and it is fun to visit with the interpreters when they are a bit more relaxed. They talked a lot about the event and how they had to interpret different things. Sometimes things don't always relate the same in a different language or culture. They would share how they were try and find an analogy that would fit in the language they were interpreting. Some were kind of funny. We were done by about 7:30 and went home and back to bed! 

When we woke up again my brain thought it was the next day, hahaha.  Then I realized it was still Saturday. Steve went shopping. We had another event on Sunday and we were trying to find something we could buy on Saturday to feed them on Sunday. We really don't like having to buy food on Sundays. It worked out pretty good. He bought a big tray of wrap sandwiches. He also got a couple of mixed fruit bowls, cookies, juices, and we had chips in our snack room. It all turned out good. I stayed home and did some work for HawkSoft. I also updated our Zone SharePoint site that I maintain. And finally, I made some real progress on my spreadsheets for Interpreter comparisons between our three systems. I am almost ready to send out emails to each of the team leads for all the languages with a list of their people and their statuses in the systems so we can get a GOOD start on onboarding all the ones that are either Inactive or missing BEFORE next General Conference. I'm hoping to send out the emails before Christmas.

On Sunday we had the first of 2 events for the Caribbean Area. This one was an Education Devotional about BYU Pathway. It was really nice. They even had some songs that were beautiful, both in the music and in the atmosphere. It was at 1:00 so we went to a different ward this morning since it was at the exact time of our normal meeting. We finished a little early so we got to have a nice evening together.

Next week is VERY LIGHT. We don't have another meal event until next Sunday afternoon. It is the 2nd of the Caribbean events. Then on December 5th we have the Christmas Devotional and a few Seminary and Institute events later in December. We might get a few more for December but it is usually pretty light. We have nearly passed 800 events for the year. That is more than any other year they have ever had. We passed last years number which had been the highest a month or two ago and we were just watching to see when we would hit 800. It has been a crazy nearly six months and we have loved every minute of it. We are excited to have the Linfords with us for the next two years. We there there are bigger and better things to come our way.

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We will be spending it with the Lofts/Call family. We are also planning to visit Thanksgiving point again the day after Thanksgiving with the Linfords. They just opened a new exhibit called Luminaria. It will be beautiful.

I can't close without expressing a few of the things we are Thankful for this Holiday Season. First and foremost is our WONDERFUL family. We love them so very much. We miss them but we know this is where we are supposed to be at this time in our life. We know that they support us in this mission and that makes it so much easier to serve. We are grateful for all of you. For your love and friendship and support. Each one of you hold a very special place in our heart. We know we are eternal brothers and sisters and we love that. We are grateful for this incredible mission we are called to serve. I never imagined anything like this and I can't imagine doing anything else. We love it and we know we were called here at this time to do what we have been trained up to do our whole life. And above all, we are Thankful for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For His Atoning sacrifice for us and for the gifts and blessings that come from Him and our beloved Heavenly Father. They give us peace and comfort in troubled times. They give us the strength and energy we need to fulfill this incredibly busy mission. I sometimes can't believe what we can do here. They give us inspiration and insight to do all the things we need to do. We are so very blessed. May the Lord bless you with all that you stand in need of and with the righteous desires of your heart!

Our Love and Prayers Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox